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NARRATOR: Tonight on
"America's Dumbest Criminals," it's going to take
more than acorns
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to coax this squirrel
out of the tree. An ATM that became an ATV
when some bank robbers decided
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to take their act on the road. And a man on the run who
hopes that no one knows what goes on behind
closed doors.
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For a revealing look at the
nation's most inept crooks, stay right where you are.
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[theme music] NARRATOR: Now, welcome your
hosts for "America's Dumbest Criminals," Daniel
Butler and Debbie Allen.
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-Oh, we're glad you're
here for tonight's show. -You've got something-- -What's wrong?
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-Oops! Got your nose. -Daniel! I can't believe I fell for that. -We have to do that.
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That's a dummy check. -All right. You have such a playful,
boyish attitude tonight.
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Got a question for you. -Sure.
What? -Did you ever play hide and
seek when you were a kid?
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-Oh, sure. All the time. All over the neighborhood. -What was the best
place you ever hid?
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-Oh. Uh-- my father's sock drawer. Yeah! -How many socks did
your father have? -Well, I was smaller then, and
it was a big chest of drawers.
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You know, I got in there. I hid for two hours.
They never found me. I had to come out.
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You know. -OK. Tonight's show is about
hiding, but hiding from police is a no-no.
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And it's a running
theme throughout several of our stories tonight. I think you'll see that,
time after time, the bad guys
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think they're eluding
police, but really they're just eluding reality. -It's like the ostrich
with the head in the sand.
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DEBBIE: Yeah. -And our first story
is an epic drama that has all of the elements
of classic literature--
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protagonist, antagonist,
recurring themes, a clash of opposing
views, and a bottle
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of cheap booze in a tree. DEBBIE: That's your
classic literature? -Yeah. Well, Shakespeare
had that in there.
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Get comfortable, OK, folks? Because this guy certainly is. [ambulance siren] -My partner and I received
a call one night of somebody
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singing and causing a
disturbance in the park. We went to the park, and we
were looking around, trying
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to find out who was singing
and making noise, when we heard the noise
coming from a tree.
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OFFICER 1: Are you drunk? CRIMINAL: I don't think so. OFFICER 1: You don't think so?
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CRIMINAL: What do you think? OFFICER 1: I don't know. If you can climb down,
you're probably not.
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CRIMINAL: OK. OFFICER 1: Don't you
want to come down? CRIMINAL: What are you thinking?
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OFFICER 1: I don't know. You going to fall? CRIMINAL: I'm going
to sleep right now.
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OFFICER 1: You're
going to sleep? CRIMINAL: Yeah. OFFICER 1: Goodnight. -I was real concerned about the
guy being way up in the tree,
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and I was going to
try and talk him down. OFFICER 1: Why don't you
come down here and sleep?
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You're going to fall off the
tree and break your neck. -I was going to take him home.
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That's all I wanted to do. I wanted him to be safe. I wasn't even thinking
about arresting him
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for drunk in public
or anything like that. [applause] -OK. -That officer was being so nice.
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-I know, but this
guy's up a tree here. But this story is
far from over, OK? That was Act One.
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And we guarantee, it ends with
a bang-- or something like that. But for now, we'll go out on
a limb with another story.
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-Oh. This one could have
ended with a bang as well when a man set out
to blow a hole in a bank.
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But, as you'll see, his
plan bombed in a big way. We go to Orem, Utah, for this
week's edition of Something
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to Remember Me By. [theme music] -September 9, we
were called to a bank on the south end of town.
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Upon arrival, we met
with the fire department, who was in the process
of cleaning out
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several flammable fluids
from the night depository. We looked around. We found several pieces of
paper that had been wadded up
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and looked like they'd been
placed inside the night depository as a wick, trying
to ignite these fluids.
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So we unrolled one of the
wicks, as you might put it, and found a phone bill. You know, this phone
bill had the name
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and address and phone
number of the suspect. Come to find out that
someone had, it looked like,
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tried to cover up a
theft, a simple theft. We found one of the
night depository bags
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empty, while all the rest were
still full of their money. We checked to see the local
theatre that was actually
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the one that was missing
the money from the night depository, and found that this
person was the night manager.
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And while we were
there, the night manager just happened to walk in. We asked him a
couple of questions,
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and immediately he broke down
and said, yes, it was me. We showed him the bill
from his phone company,
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and he says, oh, you
already knew it was me. It was a pretty funny thing. [laughter]
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-Officer has a great laugh
and a lot to laugh about. -And that dumb crook is now
in the wickless protection
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program, I believe. -Oh, I bet. -But meanwhile,
back at the tree, our police officers
are beginning
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to lose their patience
with Monkey Boy, while, surprisingly, our
little tree sloth is somehow
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managing to keep his balance. Now, let's go back to
treeside for the next round in this battle of the wills.
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-So, we had a little
talk, and I was trying to be kind of lighthearted with
him and try to talk him down,
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put him at ease. Real funny character. I asked him if he
wanted to come down and share his drink with me.
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Noticed that he had a bottle of
whiskey or some type of alcohol up in the tree. OFFICER 1: You give me a
drink if I come up there?
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Oh, that's all right. It's cool. OFFICER 2: Come on down. OFFICER 1: Come on down.
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CRIMINAL: I don't think so. OFFICER 1: Where do you live? We'll take you home. Come on.
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Where do you live? Donde vide? CRIMINAL: I don't have home. OFFICER 1: You
don't have a home?
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You live in a tree, huh? -He eventually guzzled
the whole thing down. OFFICER 1: What'd you say?
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CRIMINAL: I don't think so. OFFICER 1: No, no hable espanol. [gulping] OFFICER 2: Holy shoot.
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It's gone. What is that? OFFICER 1: He drank it all. He's going to jail. [laughter]
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NARRATOR: Hey, here's
another dumb law. In Memphis, it is
illegal for a woman to drive a car unless a
man either runs or walks
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in front of it,
waving a red flag to warn approaching
motorists and pedestrians.
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-That's a strange one. In Memphis, Tennessee. I wonder if Elvis did
that for Priscilla.
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OK, I admit it. When I'm driving,
you need a red flag, but if my husband did that
and tried that with me,
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I might just run right over him. Accidentally, of course. Maybe I could tell the police
that my gas pedal got stuck.
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I think that's a better excuse
than the one for speeding we're about to hear from a police
officer in Bellaire, Texas.
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-I was working on traffic
in a smaller city than this. I stopped the guy for speeding.
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As I approached the car
and I got his license, I ran it and it showed that
his license was suspended.
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But he showed me an
occupational license, where he can drive
to and from work. It was 3 o'clock in the morning,
and the occupational license
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stated from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM. And I asked him what
type of work did he do? He told me that
he worked for God.
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I handed him back his license
and told him that that's a 24-hour job, and I
sent him on his way.
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-And I hope that gentleman
was telling the truth, or he'll get zapped
by lightning.
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What do you think, Daniel? -Well, yeah. I mean, hey. It was a pretty good excuse.
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But didn't Dan Aykroyd
and John Belushi try that in "Blues Brothers"? They were on a mission
from God, and they
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still ended up in prison. That was a real drag. Speaking of real drags-- ouch,
need another segue-- here's
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a tale of crooks that left
quite a trail when they dragged an ATM off its foundation
and down the road.
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Apparently, they had a whole
new concept for banking at home. Here's tonight's
Blue Light Special.
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NARRATOR: In the
middle of the night, burglars tried to make
a hefty withdrawal.
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Not just cash-- they were
after the whole cash machine. -This is a shame. I don't believe this.
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I've never seen anything
like this in my life before. NARRATOR: Their efforts
were partially successful,
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thanks to the heavy-duty help
of this backloader and truck stolen from a nearby
construction site.
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-Guys just take anything. You know? I mean, unnecessary
stuff, you know, to try to break into something.
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NARRATOR: Police believed the
crooks were towing the ATM across the curb when
this heavy chain snapped
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and the thieves
split on the double. Their tug-of-war
totaled the ATM, but the grand total
of the crooks' take
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was zero-- zip-- nada. Not only did the cash
machine keep its cash, its surveillance camera captured
pictures of the thieves.
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Never try to outwit technology
with a truck and a chain. You're the only one who will
ultimately get run down.
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-That's the truth. That was a bad idea. OK. Imagine a policeman
who can travel faster than a speeding bullet.
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Well, that's just
what a drunk driver thought he'd encountered. Of course, his perception
was a little bit altered
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by the fact that he was under
the influence of something more powerful than a locomotive.
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Watch as this officer
in Provo, Utah, does a super job of
overtaking a DUI gone AWOL.
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-Years ago, when I was working
for the highway patrol, I was called to the interstate
on a two-car accident.
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When I arrived, I found
the first occupant of the first
vehicle unconscious, slumped over the steering wheel.
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I found that he
smelled like a brewery, and I didn't see any
severe injuries on him,
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so I checked out the second car. Second car had several
injuries, and I assisted them.
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And while I was in the process
of doing some first aid on the second car,
the first car,
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containing the drunk driver,
decided to start his car and drive away. Except he wasn't going
anywhere, because I
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found that the
differential had been disconnected from
the drive shaft. And it was just bouncing
around underneath the car,
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making a little bit of sparks. But unbeknownst to
the drunk, he was still driving down the road.
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And as I ran up beside him, I
motioned for him to pull over. He saw that I was
beside his car,
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and he stepped down
on the accelerator and tried to speed away. It only made a piece of
metal underneath his car
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clang around a lot louder. I decided that drunk
wasn't even going to get away from
me in his dream,
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so I started jogging in
place beside his door, motioning him to pull over. His white knuckles
on his steering
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wheel, and his speed all
the way to the bottom, and he had that car wrapped
up, as fast as it could go.
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And I continued to jog
for a second or two, motioning to pull over, and he
was continually speeding away.
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So I jogged out in front of him
and motioned for him to stop. He tried to swerve
around me even
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though his car wasn't moving. So I jogged back beside
him, opened up the door, grabbed hold of his neck by my
left hand and his right hand
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was in my right hand,
and I pulled him to that 100-mile-an-hour pavement and he
let out a bloodcurdling scream.
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Proceeded to cuff
him up, take him back to my stationary
police car. [applause] -Still to come, a trio of
stories about a crook who reeks
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at hide and seek, but first
with news that could even raise Sam Donaldson's eyebrows.
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Here's Daniel,
with ADC Headlines. -While waiting to attend a safe
driving class in Knoxville,
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a man smoked a joint
in the parking lot. Just getting ready for
class, dude, I guess.
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He was tipped off by
the telltale aroma. The police officer
approached, which sent the pothead into a
bout of reefer madness.
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He wheeled out of
his parking space, nearly mowing down the officer. Then he parked across the
street and walked back
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to attend his safe
driving class. Instead of going to school,
though, he was taken to task
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and charged with aggravated
assault with a vehicle. All right. Now, here's a story about the
blind leading the blind drunk.
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Two men were charged with
various driving-related offenses in Buffalo, New York,
stemming from their decision
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to let the brother of
one, who is legally blind, drive because the other
two were too intoxicated.
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Talk about your bad choice
of designated drivers. But reportedly, the
blind man had quote
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"always wanted to drive." Oooh. You know, I think I
followed this guy on the way
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to the studio today. Finally, an accused drug dealer
in Charles City, Virginia, helped in his own capture
by his choice of footwear.
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Trying to elude police,
he ran into the night through thick woods, but he
was wearing athletic shoes
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containing small,
battery-operated lights. So his feet blinked
with each step he took, leading
police directly to him.
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It was sort of a Morse
code for morons, you know? Well, that closes the file
on ADC Headline News, ripped
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from somewhere near the back
of your local newspaper. Debbie? -They're good. Thank you, Daniel.
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Now we come to the final chapter
in the story of the crook who fancied himself as
the long-lost member
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of the Swiss Family Robinson. When we left our
social climber, he was gaining attitude
and altitude.
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Now we'll find out
if he-- or the tree- will be torn limb from limb to
bring this tall tale to an end.
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-As the fire
department arrived, he decided to come down on
his own instead of using
00:14:32
their assistance
and actually climbed higher to the thin branches. OFFICER 2: --at the station.
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We may need only a coroner
if he falls out of there. We may not need paramedics.
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CRIMINAL: I don't think so. OFFICER 2: That's
going to break. [branches cracking]
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OFFICER 2: Here he comes. He he comes. Oh, that's [bleep] up. Oh, man. He's not on a big branch, too.
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OFFICER 1: Jeez. This is [bleep] up. OFFICER 2: He went
the wrong way. He's going to fall.
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He's coming down. You better come down feet first. CRIMINAL: I don't think so. OFFICER 2: Oh, man.
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He's going to kill himself. [scream] -This guy was pretty
dumb, drinking in a tree,
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and he fell down about
50 feet and could have really gotten hurt,
but he was lucky.
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Didn't get seriously
injured and was able to walk away
from the hospital. [applause]
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-Ow! That's going to
leave a mark, huh? But remarkably,
neither he nor the tree were seriously injured
in the incident.
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As a matter of fact, that man
walked out of the hospital just a few hours later
with just a few scratches--
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and I imagine a
badly bruised ego. Daniel? -Gee. Our next crook has
plenty to commiserate
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with in the badly
beaten pride department. He is yet another hapless
soul who finds himself
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in the wrong place at the
absolutely wrong time. He provides this week's
fodder for I'm Where?
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You're Who? -We got a call from dispatch
that there was a bank robbery alarm from a bank
that's located just
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across the street from
the police department. We see a guy running
around the corner
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and into our
parking lot, and you could tell he was
running pretty hard. He was sweating.
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And as he ran, he ran directly
towards my police car. And I got out of the car, and
as I got out and pointed my gun
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at him, he said,
oh, it's not me. It's another guy. He went that way. And I said, no, he's right here.
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And he turned and ran
to go over a block wall, but he was so tired, as he
tried to go over the block wall,
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he couldn't get over. And I just pointed my gun at
him and said, get down off there
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or I'll shoot you
right in the butt. When the FBI got here, we
brought him into an interview
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room, and we asked, did
you know where you ran? And he says, no. I said, right into
the police department.
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And he says, well, I should
have checked it out better. Then when we asked him why
he had done the robbery,
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he said it was because his
ex-wife wanted more alimony. And he figured this is
the way he could get it.
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[applause] -OK. Some people do dumb
things when they're bored. You know, we've traveled the
nation to prove our point that
00:17:17
stupidity knows no
limits, no state lines. We begin in Henderson,
North Carolina.
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-About a couple months ago,
receive the call from 911 that an individual was trying
to break into a lingerie shop.
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Upon arrival, we found where the
suspect had threw a large brick through the window and
crawled through it.
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He low-crawled to the
back of the store, removed some panties
and pantyhose and stuffed them in his pocket.
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He was so low that he
didn't activate the alarm. Owner finally came,
arrived on the scene,
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we set up a perimeter
around the building. Myself and two other officers
went inside the building,
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conducting a search. We searched everywhere first. We didn't find him. Something didn't seem right,
so we reentered the building
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and conducted another search. And lo and behold,
the subject-- he was hiding in the
bathroom in some boxes
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and amongst the clothing. We ordered him out
and handcuffed him, asked him why he did it.
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The subject said he was bored. He didn't have nothing
else to do that night. [applause]
00:18:31
-You know, it's not
unusual for police to return evidence to the
victim after a trial is over,
00:18:37
but here's a request
that was clearly dumbness in the first degree. -That's a good way to put it.
00:18:43
We think you'll agree
that it definitely belongs in the Hall of Fame we call
We're Not Making This Up.
00:18:54
-When I used to
work in Los Angeles, one of the other officers
found some marijuana
00:18:58
in a car full of teenagers,
and they charged the teenagers with possession
of the marijuana.
00:19:03
Well, for some
technical reasons, the district attorney
decided not to prosecute,
00:19:06
so the next day, the parents
of one of the teenagers called up and
said, we understand
00:19:10
you're not prosecuting. And the officer said, yes. He says, well, good. Can we have the marijuana back?
00:19:17
-Way to go, Mom and
Dad, for setting the moral tone of that family. -Well, so now we know who it
really belonged to, don't we?
00:19:23
-Exactly. -It was Mom and Dad's. And the moral of this story
was, waste it not, want it not.
00:19:28
-No, that's not true. And neither is the expression
"it never hurts to ask." -True, but it does
hurt to say goodbye.
00:19:35
But don't cry-- we'll
be back next week with another paddy wagon full
of dumb criminal stories.
00:19:40
-And remember, if you've got
a lead on a story or you just can't wait until next week
for more state-of-the-art
00:19:45
stupidity, visit our website
at www.dumbcrimes.com. -And we want to thank
you for joining us
00:19:52
and extend our gratitude
to the law enforcement officers who make
this show possible.
00:19:57
Every day, they lay
their lives on the line to keep us safe
from the stupidity of would-be criminals.
00:20:02
-And, as always,
we hope that we've all learned from
others' mistakes. -But if you haven't, we
just might see you next week
00:20:09
on "America's
Dumbest Criminals." DEBBIE: Bye-bye.